Suicide watch

Writing in the Israeli magazines +972 and Local Call, the Iranian-Israeli political activist Orly Noy expresses the agony of this moment on the verge of an even more catastrophic spasm of violence.

Israeli leaders celebrate assassinations — and make the living pay the price

... “Death-worthy” is probably the most well-worn phrase in Israeli public discourse to describe the recent assassinations. It is one among many justifications Israel has found for its uninhibited violence over the last ten months. But there is something terrifying about the fact that the question of whether or not someone is deemed “death-worthy” dictates our fate here more than whether we civilians are life-worthy.

At every intersection since the massacres of October 7, Israel has chosen the path of violence and escalation. Justifications have never been lacking: we must respond forcefully to the attacks; we must persecute those who initiated and executed it; we must intensify the pressure until they return the hostages; we must attack Lebanon in response to the rockets; we must signal to Iran that we will not be silent about its support for Hezbollah.

Ultimately, however, the automatic choice of violent escalation is suicidal. This inertia is so sweeping that it does not allow us to ask basic, existentially vital questions: Has the criminal genocide we are perpetrating in Gaza increased the security of a single person in Israel? Are we safer now, while we wait for the Iranian response? Is Israel doing better on the world stage than it was on October 7?

... It is easy to pin everything on Netanyahu; to say that the war serves his political survival, and that he has an interest in continuing it indefinitely. This is true, but it is too easy a way out. Netanyahu indeed chose to sacrifice the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, the lives of Israeli hostages, and our collective security for his personal gain. But the Israeli public devoted itself from the very beginning, with chilling joy, to the deadly path that Netanyahu paved.

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While sorting through some of my extensive cache of old demonstration photos the other day, I encountered this.

 The date was December 2008. It's been a long process, but the direction has not changed.